An anonymous reader writes: In as little as a few days, the British-made Surrey Training, Research, and Nanosatellite Demonstrator (STRaND-1) satellite will begin transitioning its key systems over to a completely stock Android Nexus One smartphone that's been bolted to the bottom of it. The mission is designed to test the endurance of off-the-shelf consumer hardware, and to validate Android as a viable platform for controlling low-cost spacecraft.

STRaND-1 managed to beat NASA's own "PhoneSat" mission to the punch, which will see a Nexus One and Nexus S launched into space aboard the April test flight of the Orbital Sciences Antares commercial launch vehicle, the prime competitor to SpaceX's Falcon 9.

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Nasa uses older cpu's, often hardened. up in space cosmic and solar radiation tends to affect negatively more modern and smaller electronics.You do not want a ray to flip a bit and mess up the on board systems causing it to fail or fall.